In the United States, child car seats are required by law for certain ages/sizes of children and recommended. There are many types of car seats available for purchase. Infant seats recommended for children under age 1 are typically rear-facing. Many include a base that is belted or tethered into the car and a seat that can latch into the base. The seat often includes a handle so that the seat may be carried when it is unlatched from the base (i.e., from the car). A popular car seat option for infants as well as children is a “convertible” car seat that may be oriented in a rear-facing position and the “converted” to a front-facing position. Some convertible car seats may even convert into a booster seat for children weighing up to 100 pounds. Typically the convertible car seats are strapped into the car using the car seat-belt, or are anchored to the car frame directly using a LATCH (Lower anchors and Tethers for children) system. Some car seats offer a harness for strapping the child into the seat. The usual harness is a five-point safety harness. The car seats tend to be formed from injection molded plastic, typically at least 5 mm thick, and the seats (with base in the case of the infant seats) typically weight 7 kgs or more.
Recently it has been found desirable to provide impact protection incorporated in car seats that absorb energy from a crash, accident, or other incidents that are directed from the side of the car seat. So far, there have been limited situations of manufacturers offering car seats having such protections, particularly through use of an additional energy-absorbing element incorporated in the side structure of the child safety seat.
Specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 7,234,711 discloses a side protective head restraint pad, pad assembly and safety seat. The restraint pad includes an air bladder with a pump for selectively inflating the air bladder and a release valve for selectively deflating the air bladder, an energy-absorbing component and a comfort component. A flexible enclosure is provided within which the air bladder, energy-absorbing component and comfort component are positioned in overlaid configuration to define a unit. The head restraint pad is adapted for being placed in a seat in lateral alignment with one side of the head of an occupant and inflated or deflated as appropriate to restrain the head against injurious lateral movement caused by a side impact relative to the seat.
In a different implementation of side impact protection for a child car seat, U.S. Pat. No. 7,232,185 discloses a head rest for a car seat used to transport a child in an automobile which is positionally adjustable vertically along the seat back on which the head rest is mounted. A latching mechanism is actuated by a button at the top of the head rest and includes a releasable latch engagable with the channels slidably supporting the support rails of the head rest. A retainer clip is mounted at the top of the channels to prevent the head rest from being separated from the seat back once assembled thereon. The head rest includes a pair of laterally spaced wings that are pivotally connected to the rear support portion of the headrest to be positionally adjustable relative to the child's head through an angular displacement of approximately 45 degrees. The pivot mechanism is operable to lock the wings in the selected positions.
Some additional general examples of implementations of the concept include the side impact devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,690,237 entitled “Child car seat and headrest with side impact energy absorption” and U.S. Pat. No. 7,726,734 entitled “Juvenile seating with resilient side impact protection” as well devices that can be found in products marketed by such manufacturers as Maxi Cosi, Graco, and Britax.
However, none of these examples provides a child car seat having a relatively simple, non-static side impact protection device that is cheap to implement and provides the desired amount of energy absorption capabilities. Accordingly, it is desired to provide a child car seat having a relatively simple, non-static side impact protection device that is cheap to implement and provides the desired amount of energy absorption capabilities to the car seat.